It then fell out of favour, not only because the novel was written from a (rather old-fashioned) middle-class perspective, but also because it dealt with a phenomenon (a travelling music hall troupe) that no longer existed.

In Graham Greene's 1932 novel Stamboul Train, Priestley is satirized as Quin Savory, author of The Great Gay Round, the Cockney genius who usually remembered to drop his aitches.

Produced by Gaumont, it starred John Gielgud as Ingo Jollifant, Jessie Matthews as Susie Dean and Edmund Gwenn as Jess Oakroyd.

A Technicolor remake was directed by J. Lee Thompson for Associated British Picture Corporation and starred Eric Portman as Oakroyd, Celia Johnson as Miss Trant, Joyce Grenfell as Lady Partlit, Janette Scott as Susie Dean, John Fraser as Inigo Jollifant and Rachel Roberts as Elsie and Effie Longstaff.

It came to be typified by the contemporaneous Angry Young Men of British stage and screen as the kind of unrealistic depiction of working-class Britain they were struggling to be free of.

The cast included John Mills as Oakroyd, Judi Dench as Miss Trant and Marti Webb as Susie Dean.

In 1994 BBC Radio 4 broadcast an adaptation featuring Bernard Cribbins as Jess Oakroyd and Hannah Gordon as Miss Trant.

On 4, 11 and 18 August 2002 BBC Radio 4 broadcast a three-part dramatisation of Priestley's novel by Eric Pringle, with Helen Longworth as Suzie Dean, Philip Jackson as Jess Oakroyd, Jemma Churchill as Elizabeth Trant and Nicholas Boulton as Inigo Jolliphant.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute adaptation by John Retallack on 24 February 2018, directed by David Hunter and featuring Ralph Ineson as Jess Oakroyd, Fenella Woolgar as Miss Trant, Roy Hudd as Jimmy Nunn, Oliver Gomm as Inigo Jollifant and Isabella Inchbald as Susie Dean.